TINA’S TURN TO TALK

WE all knew Tina Brown wouldn’t sit back and take that scurrilous piece of work by Judy Bachrach, last year’s hatchet job “Tina and Harry Come to America.” I understand now that Tina has taken her $1 million severance pay from Harvey Weinstein and Miramax Books, she is sharpening her quill and Judy is the target. Tina’s husband Harry Evans took his licks in the Bachrach book but the couple’s strategy appears to be to let Harry hold the high ground – he has multiple book deals to examine our times past and present – whereas Tina has no qualms about getting down and dirty if need be.

I understand she has been trying to recover the letters she wrote to British literary legend Auberon Waugh when she was a precocious Oxford undergraduate some 30 years ago. Waugh’s widow may not be cooperating – either she wants to do her own book or she’s still sore about the correspondence between the two figures.

Tina is having a fine old time duchessing her way around Europe with pals like Barry Diller, who are encouraging her to “go Hollywood” and maybe beat Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter to the punch. But there’s room for both of them and they sincerely (yes, sincerely!) admire each other.

One of Tina’s assistants told me over the weekend she hadn’t heard anything about an autobiography coming down the pipe. But it is a fascinating project that provokes some immediate questions: Will Miramax publish such a tome particularly if Tina was to sink the slipper into large-target Weinstein? Would the book be better published in two versions – one for the English literati and one for the New York publishing crowd?

Still kicking

DURABLE Orin Lehman is one octogenarian who still has a lot of women fighting over him. The merchant banking scion has just been staying in London with Rita Dauphin, in separate suites at Claridge’s Hotel while another of Orin’s old flames, tart-tongued Joan Rivers, is doing her own hot one-woman show there en route to Broadway. I understand Joan sent a note intended for Orin the other day suggesting “dump the tramp, come see me in the show.” Claridge’s, demonstrating unflappable English aplomb, took the note to the wrong room. They delivered it to Rita’s suite instead of Orin’s. Rita was not amused and sent back a note to Joan saying, “The only tramp is you!”

Race & the music biz

LOONY Michael Jackson (at least insofar as his charges about racism and the record industry) would be better seen and not heard. His claims that black stars are being “dissed” are now being echoed by some responsible recording artists. Shawn Stockman, of “Boyz II Men,” was at the Suede party for the group’s new release, “Full Circle,” the other night and told Webster Hall curator Baird Jones that, while he hated to play the race card, if Boyz had been a white group they would have made the cover of Time magazine 10 years ago when they broke the No. 1 hit string earlier put together by Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel.” “It was like a full paragraph in Billboard and then nothing,” Shawn claimed. Bandmate Nathan Morris agreed, “When we had found out that we had broken Elvis’ record we were in London. We came back to the States and it just seemed that everyone was so loyal to Elvis there was a complete media blackout. I mean, can you imagine the publicity that would have occurred if Celine Dion or Madonna had broken that record.”

Inseparable

CROONER Tom Postilio has been starring in “Our Sinatra” for 18 months. The show closed last night but the link between politics and showbiz continues. Tonight Postilio performs with his 14-piece orchestra at the Rainbow Room for the Democratic Leadership Council. Former board member Bill Clinton is coming to the dinner tonight and they’re hoping he’ll bring his saxophone. So the Sinatra link, which was broken when Ol’ Blue Eyes and JFK had their falling out, is forged again. Postilio, described by Peter Duchin as the heir apparent to Sinatra, also managed to be in San Francisco for a performance to benefit the Susan Komen Breast Cancer Foundation the other night.

The music’s stopped

THE scene in the Hamptons isn’t too venal this season and may in fact be toning down after the gross excesses of last year. Book parties and cultural events seem to have taken the place of riding around looking for the next great disco. Michael and Eleanor Kennedy threw a great launch party for 18-year-old Nick McDonnell’s book “Twelve,” Kathy and Billy Rayner had 60 in for dinner to celebrate Jane Hitchcock’s book “Social Crimes” and Bob Colacello and Jonathan Becker staged a bash for their own Hamptons coffee-table work. Last night, Frances Hayward had her annual party at Grey Gardens with George Plimpton for Philamusica.

Honest mistake

DIRECTOR Steven Spielberg looked on Hollywood legend Lew Wasserman as his father and mentor. Spielberg is also a stickler for detail and I doubt he will be pleased with the wording of the lavish invitations which are circulating for his SHOAH Foundation fund-raiser at the East Hampton home of Arne and Milly Glimcher a week from next Sunday. There’s a special performance by the legendary Tony Bennett and it should be a wonderful evening for the cause of remembering victims of the Holocaust. Unfortunately, Lew died back on June 3, but somehow his name is still listed as one of the evening’s chairs.

It all ads up

THE ads often are the best part of the Super Bowl so it’s nice to see the TV spots are getting a book of their own when “The Super Bowl of Advertising” is published by Bloomberg Press in fall 2003. Ad guru Bernice Kanner did a 1999 book on the 100 best TV commercials and why they work, and now she’s zeroing in on the Super Bowl element. I know that Donald Trump has already OK’d the use of his spot for Pizza Hut – and I guess that former Govs. Mario Cuomo (New York)and Ann Richardson (Texas) will also be featured. But at least no one’s letting their egos run away with the project. The book will be limited to 20,000 copies.